‘Speed up citizenship bid of children born overseas’

Bina Ramanand

PUTRAJAYA: The Association of Family Support and Welfare Selangor and Kuala Lumpur (Family Frontiers) wants the National Registration Department (NRD) to speed up citizenship approval for children born overseas to Malaysian women.

Family Frontiers spokesperson Bina Ramanand said some 70 Malaysian mothers have yet to receive updates followings submission of the citizenship documents under Borang D for their overseas-born children to the department, some of which was submitted in December last year.

“We are wondering why the processing (of the documents) should take so long.

“The mothers who checked the status were told it would take six months to process,” the spokesperson said after following up on the issue at the NRD’s headquarters yesterday, Bernama reported.

On Sept 9 last year, the High Court declared that children born overseas to Malaysian mothers married to foreigners should automatically be able to get their Malaysian citizenship.

The High Court ordered the government to issue relevant documents such as identity cards to these children in recognition of the court’s ruling.

Ummal Remiza Khaja Mohideen, who is fighting for her eldest daughter’s right to acquire Malaysian citizenship, said she had submitted the relevant documents to the NRD last March and was still waiting for an answer.

She is married to a Nigerian and has two other children who were born in Malaysia.

Ummul Remiza, who is with her husband in Qatar, flew back to Malaysia to deliver her two other children to avoid facing similar problems in their citizenship process as what happened with her eldest daughter.